Government’s welfare department has published the latest version of a major citizen study which finds that, for some benefit lines, more than three in five cannot use internet services unassisted
A Department for Work and Pensions study of thousands of citizens has found that one in three service users cannot access online support without help – a figure that rises to more than six in ten for some benefits.
The department’s Customer Experience Survey is a periodical research exercise, the most recent edition of which contains data gathered from interviews with more than 9,000 benefit recipients during the 2024/25 year.
The newly published report reveals that 95% of all interviewees have access to the internet – although this figure falls noticeably for claimants of Pension Credit (80%) and Attendance Allowance (86%).
Despite this widespread connectivity, only 67% of all respondents said that they were able to use the internet to access government services unassisted. A further 17% indicated that they are able to go online for benefit support if they have help at hand.
But this still leaves more than one in seven DWP service users who cannot use government internet services whatsoever.
And the figures are far worse than this for some benefit lines – with Pension Credit, which has almost 1.4 million current claims, again emerging as a problem area. Only 39% of recipients said that they can access web services without help, and a little over a third of claimants cannot go online at all, DWP’s research shows.
For each of Attendance Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, and Personal Independence Payment, only about half of all service users can use internet services on their own.
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The figures are much higher – in the range of 70-80% – for all other benefit lines. But, even for the State Pension, which has comfortably the highest levels of online access, about one in five recipients cannot get on the internet without hands-on help – and half of these lack the support to go online at all.
Despite these challenges faced by citizens, the Customer Experience Survey uncovered that 87% of all respondents said that they are satisfied with DWP’s services, with 13% expressly indicating dissatisfaction, and 10% not sure either way.
Some 80% of research participants said that DWP staff provided them with accurate information, while the same proportion were happy with the length of time it took to resolve their claim or issue.
Payments were an area where the DWP performed well, its study suggests: 96% agreed that the department paid benefits when it said it would, while 93% indicated that they were paid the expected amount.
However, only 76% felt able to agree “that they did not experience any problems with their new benefit claim or change of circumstances” – leaving one in four that felt this did not apply to them.
A similar proportion – 77% of all respondents – agreed that making a new benefit claim or updating an existing claim was easy. But the figure was significantly lower for Personal Independence Payment, where only 56% of recipients found the DWP’s processes easy, and for Disability Living Allowance for Children, where the proportion was 61%.
There was better news for the DWP in citizens’ use of GOV.UK, with 88% of all respondents claiming that they were able to find all the information they needed on the government website.
